Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Gosho Aoyama. I am
jealous, but not enough to make any profit from his works.

***

Chapter 1: A Dozen Flowers

The day had started off fairly normally.

"Good morning!"

At least, about as normally as any day could with
someone like Kaitou Kuroba
in the classroom.

Aoko reared back in her
chair as the magician standing in front of her practically exploded with
tricks, confetti and cards flying everywhere.
The wild display finally ended with Kaitou
holding a sizable bouquet of fifteen white roses. "For you, ojou-san!"

Intellectually, Aoko knew
that Kaitou had hidden the confetti, cards, and roses
somewhere in his school uniform, but she was completely stumped as to where,
exactly. And they were in perfect condition, too … after a moment of hesitation, she took them,
not without a small blush for Kaitou's (seemingly
unthinking) gift. "Thank you,"
she said, a little surprised. It was
true that occasionally Kaitou busted out with some
present for her, but he always managed to do it when she least expected.

But as she thought it over, she decided that she
shouldn't give Kaitou too much credit. The big baka owed
her a lot more, after all, making her mad every day and then laughing at her
temper …

She shouldn't have been surprised, then, when three
of the roses suddenly dissolved into a flurry of feathers, turning into doves
before her eyes. "Waugh!"

"Whoops!" Kaitou
exclaimed unrepentantly, his eyes twinkling.
"I meant to give you 12 flowers.
Guess I didn't count too carefully, huh?" The three doves landed on his shoulders and
hand; a flick of his hand sent all three out the open window of the classroom.

Aoko just sat there for a
moment, too startled to speak, before standing up suddenly. "Don't do that!" she cried,
trying to be angrier than she felt. It
was just like him to bury a hidden surprise in an apparently innocent
present. "Can't you stop joking for
even a moment?"

Kaitou put on a pout that
would have been perfect if his eyes weren't still laughing. "But that wouldn't be any fun,"
he said petulantly.

"Oh, for goodness sakes," she swiped at him
irritably with one hand, since she was missing her mop, and he reared back out
of her reach. "At least clean up
this me—mess …" But the cards he
had scattered with his initial show were already gone to God-only-knew where,
and Kaitou was already vaulting his desk to fall with
grace into his seat, whereupon he produced a newspaper out of apparently
nowhere and began to read.

For some reason this just frustrated Aoko further. How
could he be so ridiculously—ridiculously flippant!? "Kaitou!"

"What?" he didn't look up from his reading,
so Aoko grabbed the newspaper impulsively to get his attention.
"Hey!" He gave her an indignant, amused look. "What was that for?"

Aoko actually had to think
for a moment to come up with an answer; being annoyed with Kaitou
was a perpetual state of being, it seemed, and no
longer needed constant explanation.
"You give me a present like this and then you act like nothing
happened!?" She presented the
bouquet and gave him an accusing look.
"At least say "You're welcome"!

Kaitou grinned at her. "You're welcome!" he said, his
voice a perfect imitation of her own irate tones. "And you can keep the newspaper, I
suppose." He pulled a sheet of
paper out of his desk, folded it twice, crumpled it in his fingers, and a
moment later, he was holding another newspaper.
"Ta-daa!"

Ooooh …
"Pay attention to me!" she said hotly.

"Okay."
To Aoko's surprise, he folded the newspaper
and looked up at her. "You wanted
to say something?"

"Ah … well …" She hadn't expected him to
actually listen, after all.

"No? In
that case—" he grinned that infuriating grin
again, and started to go back to the newspaper.
"Look, Kaitou Kid got away with another
heist last night! I'll bet your father
was pretty mad, haha …" he chuckled – well,
actually, it was more of a snicker.

Aoko saw red for a very
brief moment. "You—you—!"
She wanted a mop so badly right then that she settled for her
chair. "Stop making fun of
me!"

"Hey, hey!" Without putting down the newspaper, Kaitou leapt from his seat as the chair passed through the
space he had been in a moment before.
"I'm not making fun of you!
I'm just—"

"Shut up!" she roared, swinging the chair
again. "Stop jumping around like a
rabbit and take your punishment like a man!"

The class had become so used to this it was almost
disturbing. "Hey, someone get Nakamori-san a mop before she kills someone besides Kuroba-kun," somebody suggested; a moment later, a mop
had been retrieved from the room next door and handed to Aoko. "Here you go, Nakamori-san."

"Thank you," she said primly, putting down
the chair, and swinging the mop at Kaitou instead. The magician bounced around the room
like a rubber ball gone mad, always just out of range of Aoko's
weapon. "Whoops—!"

The class, for their part, breathed a collective sigh
of relief; true, the mop had more range, but it was also lighter, and Aoko had more experience with it and was less likely to hit
someone other than Kaitou by accident.

As luck would have it today, though, Kaitou decided to escape the classroom and bounded down the
halls of the school. Aoko
gave chase, never letting up with her makeshift weapon. "Kaitou,
you—get—down—here!" She panted through grit teeth.

"No!" Kaitou sang
merrily, making a show of his acrobatic escape.
"You stop swinging first!"

Finally. It always seemed like their wild 'fights'
ended like this, with a demand from Aoko and a call
for a truce from Kaitou; in truth, she was more than
ready for it. Chasing Kaitou around was tiring.
She thumped the end of the mop on the ground and glared up at Kaitou, who was still attached to the ceiling. "Okay, I'm stopping," she said
snappily. "Now get down here so we
can get back to class."

Kaitou complied after only
a moment, and Aoko was unhappy to note that Kaitou had neither dropped his newspaper nor seemed winded
from the chase. "As
long as I carry the mop."
Almost before she knew it, the mop had migrated from her hands to Kaitou's; he winked at her and she tried not to fume.

"Mou," she
huffed, folding her arms. "Why do you always make me so mad!?"

Did he mean that?
Did Kaitou really just say that she was cute
(even if there was an annoying disclaimer put on that)? Wait, why was she getting so worked up over
this, anyway, it was just Kaitou, the annoying
'friend' she'd had since first grade, the crazy magic-otaku who—who … but …

He thought she was cute?

She was startled out of her thoughts by Kaitou flipping up her skirt. "You have purple
panties?"

"ARGH!" She made a desperate grab for the mop still
in Kaitou's hands, but he danced out of the way,
practically glowing. It was just some
stupid trick, she should have guessed! "You obnoxious monkey!"

"Ahahahaha—!" Kaitou ran back to
the classroom, snickering all the way, with Aoko hot
on his heels.

* * *

This is my first Kaitou Kid fic, and I hope I did
a decent job with the characterizations.

Next chapter: A paper
crane.

Please let me know what
you think with a review!

~~Vikki

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